SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived: Recent Episodes
Sebastian Michael
Sebastian Michael, author of The Sonneteer and several other plays and books, looks at each of William Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets in the originally published sequence, giving detailed explanations and looking out for what the words themselves tell us about the great poet and playwright, about the Fair Youth and the Dark Lady, and about their complex and fascinating relationships.
The last poem in the collection to address William Shakespeare's mistress directly, Sonnet 152 conclusively answers some questions, while leaving many old and several new ones open for us to ponder into posterity.
It asserts again that his Dark Lady is indeed 'dark', both in appearance and in character, and here makes a stronger than ever point of how he as the poet is perjuring himself by repeatedly, even continuously, saying things about her that are simply untrue; these things, notably, not being slanderous lies but favourable compliments.
The sonnet thus epitomises the form that Shakespeare with his highly unusual series either deliberately or accidentally creates: that of the anti-love poem to someone he just can't resist, even though he knows that in this he presents as deep a character flaw in himself as the ones he perceives in the person or people he professes to love or desire.
The heavily and obviously innuendo-laden Sonnet 151 returns to a struggle the poet purports to experience between what his soul – the 'nobler part' of his being – knows to be right and what his body wants and, with the by implication reluctant permission of the soul, then also gets: sex with his mistress.
Although coached in euphemism and metaphor, it is in fact one of the most sexually explicit sonnets in the collection and succeeds in leaving remarkably little to the imagination, once unpacked.
The at first glance unspectacular Sonnet 150 sets off from the base laid down by the previous three sonnets and now wonders out loud just how the mistress with her numerous and by now well established flaws and a beauty that could – according to these poems – be most charitably described as unconventional, manages to make our poet love her at all, and apparently prize her above all others, even those who, when looked at with a clearer vision and a less feverish mind than his, are objectively much more beautiful and agreeable than she is.
The conclusion it comes to though offers not only a fairly familiar observation that as the lover so enfeebled by your superhuman powers I surely deserve some love and pity from you, but also a surprisingly stark deconstruction, so as not to say demolition, of the lady's character in its entirety.
After establishing in the previous two sonnets that he is possessed of a 'fever' that makes him 'mad' and that distorts his vision, William Shakespeare uses Sonnet 149 to further describe the effect this love for his mistress is having on him. So much is he in her thrall that no-one whom she hates he can love, no-one she admires he may disdain. Just a glance of her eyes, and he will obey. And yet, in spite of all this, she loves him not but pursues other lovers who are not so blinded by love as he.
In Sonnet 148, William Shakespeare develops the themes revisited with Sonnet 147 and further elaborates on his realisation that reason has abandoned him and he is therefore incapable of judging properly what he sees. Either that, or his eyes themselves are faulty, since they seem to distort what they are looking at.
The conclusion he comes to, much in line with the previous sonnet, is that his defective vision stems from his love for his mistress, but he here adds the almost 'technical' but for this not at all inconsequential detail that his eyes couldn't possibly be expected to deliver a true picture to the brain of what they see, since their vision is blurred by tears, suggesting therefore that this love he feels for his mistress is tinged with sadness, sorrow, or pain.
In Sonnet 147, William Shakespeare brings together two themes that have agitated him before: firstly the at the time fairly commonplace notion of love – and, more to the point, desire – as a disease that weakens the mind to the point of an irrational madness and afflicts the body in a similarly stark fashion, and secondly the ways in which his mistress deviates from the ordinarily praised ideal of beauty.
The sonnet therefore returns the series firmly and identifiably to the 'Dark Lady' and the effect she is having on our poet in an unequivocally physical manner, leaving behind the reflections on the soul of the previous sonnet and concerning itself once more with his lust for someone he knows – or at the very least declares – to be neither traditionally beautiful nor morally sound.
With his solemn, near pious, Sonnet 146, William Shakespeare for the first and only time speaks directly to his soul and entreats it to look after itself; to stop expending its energy on the pursuit of outward, physical adornments which are all doomed to swift decay – effectively starving and weakening itself whilst feeding and strengthening the gluttonous body that is only meant to house it and that will soon succumb to death – and to instead let go of material riches and with the 'return' from 'selling' them, 'purchase' something infinitely more valuable: eternal life in concord with, and on the terms ordained by, God.
The poem makes no mention, nor does it allude to or reference indirectly, any lover, mistress, or wife, nor love itself, or sex. This, too, makes it unique in the collection. As does its close alignment with a Christian notion of redemption through spiritual nurture at the expense of, and in preference to, physical or material gratification.
Sonnet 145 stands out in the collection for several reasons. Some factual, some conjectural, some somewhere in-between.
Most obviously and beyond interpretation evident is the fact that it is the only poem composed in iambic tetrameter: it consists of 14 lines of eight syllables each, in contrast to the iambic pentameters present in all the other sonnets, giving each line of those ten or eleven syllables.
Also still difficult to dispute, though already in the realm of opinion, is the observation, so as not to say contention, put forward by many scholars and commentators, that the sonnet is poetically, stylistically, literarily 'slight': it strikes a simple tone, uses some extremely familiar imagery and analogy, and is, as far as we can tell, mostly devoid of the high level compositional and rhetorical devices used in many of the other, 'regular', sonnets.
Pure supposition, though intelligent and fully valid as a suggestion, is the idea that the sonnet puns on the name Hathaway and is therefore not about the Dark Lady or any other mistress, but about Shakespeare's wife, Anne; and even more adventurous is the conjecture drawn from it that therefore the poem be an early stab of Shakespeare's at as-yet-imperfect sonneteering: there is absolutely no proof that this is so, and it is just as conceivable that Shakespeare with Sonnet 145 deliberately and most intentionally not only employs a different format but also aims for a categorically different tone.
With his exceptionally explicit and startlingly revelatory Sonnet 144 William Shakespeare addresses head on the fact that his mistress and his lover are certainly friends, and that he suspects – rather strongly, we get the impression – them to be so with benefits.
By identifying the man as 'right fair' and contrasting him with a woman who is 'coloured ill', he confirms what we have long thought to be the case: this is a constellation that has turned triangular, and it involves these precise three individuals, the poet, his younger male lover, the Fair Youth of the first 126 sonnets in the collection, and the Dark Lady around whom 25 of the remaining 28 sonnets revolve.
This rather puts paid to the suggestion espoused by some scholars that these sonnets can or let alone should be read in isolation, that no narrative of any kind should ever be deduced from them, or that they may have been written to and about any number of lovers of any gender over the period of their composition. What Sonnet 144 shows beyond anything that might still be considered reasonable doubt, and much in line with Sonnets 33 through 42 in the Fair Youth section and Sonnets 133 and 134 in this, the Dark Lady section of the collection, is that these two groups of poems overlap, that they concern themselves with the same 'two loves' of Shakespeare's, and that our poet is profoundly disturbed by the fact that, as he sees and presents it, his mistress has seduced his young man.
With his uncharacteristically lighthearted Sonnet 143, William Shakespeare plants a picture in our minds of the poet as a crying toddler placed on the ground while his mother is running after a wayward chicken, and expresses his hope, not unreasonable in the imagined circumstances, that the mother, once she has caught the bird she's chasing, will come back to him and comfort him with her affection and her love.
It's an unusual simile to say the least: not because it is complex or difficult to visualise – in fact the opposite – but because it departs from virtually all and any traditional or even just, one might argue, advisable comparison for a lover to invoke: rare is the Lothario who impresses his mistress by likening himself to her babe. And it continues to expressly accept the fact that this woman has other men whom she actively pursues. In this case, it would appear, one particular other man, who in this oddly farcical setup is assigned the role of the runaway cockerel.
With Sonnet 142 William Shakespeare picks up on the notion of 'sin' employed in the last line of the previous sonnet, and now juxtaposes this sin or sinful love of his for his mistress with her supposed 'virtue' in rejecting this love for being sinful, while simultaneously undermining any suggestion that she is in fact virtuous by asking her to just take a long, hard look at herself and her own behaviour, from which she will readily recognise that it is just as bad, if not in fact much worse.
The sonnet thus continues the poet's double-edged approach to wooing his mistress, by on the one hand expressing his wish to have sex with her, while on the other hand also mildly rebuking her for having sex with other men, or, to be more precise, while refusing to be rebuked by her for wanting to have sex with her, when she herself is liberally sleeping around.
Sonnet 141 is one of several poems in the collection that show William Shakespeare to be deeply ill at ease with his lust and his love for his mistress.
It may easily be argued that all of the Dark Lady Sonnets come over with a greater or lesser degree of ambiguity, with her appearance, her comportment, her smell, her touch, her sound, and most certainly her fidelity, all having either been brought into question or downright decried.
Sonnet 141 does all of the above, summarising these 'thousand errors' his mistress appears to possess and laying them out as a supposedly sensual feast, the like of which he has no appetite for. Yet he still finds his foolish heart drawn to her, and for this, he concludes, he must suffer the pain that he appears to accept as his – perhaps in a somewhat perverse way – due reward.
In this special episode, Phyllis Rackin, Professor Emerita of English from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and former president of the Shakespeare Association of America talks to Sebastian Michael about the position of women in Elizabethan society, about William Shakespeare's relationship with the women in his life, and about what we can and cannot know specifically of the Dark Lady in his Sonnets.
With Sonnet 140, William Shakespeare at first seems to set out on some general counsel for his mistress not to try his patience too much, as doing so might drive him mad and cause him, in his madness, to say bad things about her. The damage this could do would be exacerbated by a world that is itself full of mad people who would be inclined to believe him even if what he came out with were but scurrilous lies.
Strongly implied also though is that not everything scandalous he might say about his mistress would necessarily be untrue, And with the last line of the closing couplet, he then ties his sonnet firmly back to the previous one and reiterates his request that even though she obviously has other lovers, she keep her eyes on him when they are together at least.
With Sonnet 139, William Shakespeare finds himself quite comfortably in the domain of the classical Petrarchan sonnet, invoking the themes and poetic tropes that other sonneteers of the period, most notably Sir Philip Sidney in his Astrophel and Stella use to speak about their mistress's capacity to captivate and, if they so wish, kill them with their looks.
The initial plea with the mistress is simple and straightforward: I know you have other men, so when you are with me, just tell me to my face that this is the case, rather than flirting with them with furtive glances. Having devoted the octave – the eight lines of the first two quatrains – of his sonnet to this principal argument, he then uses the sestet – the six lines of the final quatrain and the closing couplet – to propose a somewhat sophistic excuse for his mistress's behaviour, allowing for the fanciful idea that she divert her devastating looks to other men so as to spare him additional suffering, which, he finally resolves she shouldn't do, since he'd rather 'die' – at least metaphorically – than be left in limbo...
With Sonnet 138 William Shakespeare takes a step back and reflects on how both he and his mistress in their relationship with each other are effectively living a lie which they both actively conspire to maintain: she pretends to be faithful to him although she fully knows that he knows that she obviously isn't, and he goes along with it when she treats him as if he were an innocent young lover who not only is still in his prime but who is also uneducated in matters of love, both of which she similarly knows not to be the case.
In Sonnet 137, William Shakespeare draws together two of the themes established by the 'Dark Lady Sonnets' thus far: his mistress's unconventional beauty and her sexual freedom.
Following the near-obsessive punning of Sonnets 135 and 136, which lent them a humorous, light-hearted tone, our poet settles back into a more evenly rounded style that is easier on our eye and ear, but no less acute in its observation and in fact ostensibly more fierce in its assessment of the situation: Sonnet 137, for all its poetic metaphorising pulls no punches and portrays this woman's looks no longer as merely 'different' but as downright ugly, and her body as a place that gives access for all men to ride.
Still, the conclusion it reaches is not one of condemnation, but of contented resignation: this is how it is now and I am thus in my desire and affection tied to her.
In Sonnet 136, William Shakespeare part develops, part reiterates the 'argument', such as it is, of Sonnet 135, that in amongst an abundance of men whom he suggests his mistress is having sex with, he should at least be one, and that she should think of him as her possibly principal lover, mostly on account of his name, Will, which here as in the previous sonnet is treated as synonymous with 'desire', 'the intention to have that desire met', 'the male sexual organ with which this is accomplished', and 'the name of the man or men to whom said sexual organ belongs', as well as the future tense when some or any of this is likely to happen.
The only sense of 'will' present in the previous sonnet that does not come into play here is the female sexual organ, but that does not make this sonnet any less salacious, because for this, Shakespeare here finds another commonly used euphemism at the time, which he latches onto and puns on for a couple of lines instead...
With Sonnet 135 William Shakespeare embarks on an exercise in making as much use of – and mischief with – his own name as poetic acrobatics will allow.
He doesn't entirely avoid, one might argue, falling off the flying trapeze of rhetorical invention and into the safety net of his overall benign, endearing nature, by occasionally misjudging the fine balance there is to be kept between 'bawdy' and 'lewd', though that in itself is obviously a matter of taste.
The near compulsive punning on 'Will' with six different meanings continues into and throughout Sonnet 136 and will later be picked up again briefly, which does pose the question whether he attaches more significance to the name he shares with many men of his era than simply some self-conscious sexual innuendo...
Sonnet 134 continues the argument from Sonnet 133 and now refines the plea made by that sonnet for the young lover to be freed from the mistress's shackles and develops it effectively into a proposed bargain: since he has put his name on the same bond that ties me to you as a guarantor only, I will forfeit myself to you if you release him back to me.
This, the poet immediately realises, is not, however, going to get him anywhere, because the mistress, already in possession of both, will exercise her full title in both and have them both, and so although, as the sonnet also suggest, the young man was only ever brought into her orbit on Shakespeare's behalf, he too is now lost to the mistress and pays Shakespeare's debt to her, without this being enough though to release either of them from being held captive by and thus enthralled to her.
In his astonishingly frank Sonnet 133 William Shakespeare attempts to come to terms with the fact that his young lover is also having an affair with his mistress.
The sonnet in one fell swoop answers two principal questions: first, what 'black deeds' of his Dark Lady's he may be referring to in the closing couplet of Sonnet 131, and second, who the woman might be that appears in the crisis which besets his relationship with the young man between Sonnets 33 and 42.
And while there is of course no external, cast-iron proof that these sonnets do constellate to form a coherent picture, Sonnet 133 is in fact only the first of several sonnets to strongly suggest they do.
What it leaves no doubt about, and what subsequent sonnets will make even more explicitly clear, is that William Shakespeare is for the second time in the collection talking about a relationship that has turned triangular.
With Sonnet 132, William Shakespeare suspends the charge brought against his mistress at the end of the previous sonnet that she is 'black' in nothing so much as in her deeds, and instead pleads with her to have pity on him as he suffers under her disdain for him. At first glance and in isolation it might seem, then, that such 'black' deeds as were mentioned in the closing couplet of Sonnet 131 are nothing but this attitude of hers towards him, but as we saw then and also discuss here, this is unlikely to be the case since a 'ladylike' level of decorum requires a woman at the time to be quite unapproachable and at least apparently aloof, and Sonnet 133 will confirm in no uncertain terms that the deeds in question are of a different nature altogether.
The sonnet thus stands in a long tradition of poetry that has a male lover pine for his unattainable and/or contemptuous mistress, and while on the surface it appears to express itself in positively chaste tones – certainly when compared to the exceptionally explicit Sonnet 129 – it still carries some subtle but nonetheless perfectly evident sexual undertones which it combines, so we get the impression, with just a tinge of irony.
Sonnet 131 connects directly to Sonnet 130 and now invokes a further poetic trope, that of the tyrannous mistress who makes her admirer to groan for love, even though this woman is – as Sonnet 130 made clear – categorically different to those other beauties traditionally so characterised and, as this poem also is fairly quick to point out, her beauty is not universally considered to have the capacity to make a man thus suffer an aching desire for her.
Shakespeare then once again plays on his awareness of this circumstance and again acknowledges, indeed asserts, that as far as he is concerned she fully has that power so ascribed to other ladies with their light-skinned, fair-haired beauty, and that her darker skin and black hair to him constitute the most beautiful thing there is, only to then in the closing couplet ambush her with a surprising twist: it is not, he startlingly declares, your outward appearance that is black, as in 'ugly,' it is your deeds that make you so, and that, as far as I can tell, is where you get your bad reputation from.
With Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare, from the first, famous and oft-quoted line onwards, strikes a note possibly of defiance, possibly of satire, possibly both, subverting the traditional idolisation of a lover's object of desire through poetry and putting down a second powerful marker in quick succession that his mistress is different to other mistresses eulogised in sonnet form of then current fashion, not only but particularly because with her tan skin and black hair she doesn't fit the standard ideal of beauty of his day.
In a tone that to us – and out context – sounds startlingly disparaging, he de-deifies and in doing so humanises her, and he once again asserts that both false beauty and false praise of beauty are not his style.
Sonnet 129 is the most explicitly sexual, and therefore sexually explicit, poem in the collection so far, and it is the first to betray a deep unease on William Shakespeare's part with his own desire for his mistress. The language he employs to characterise the sexual act with her oscillates from ecstasy of expectation to post-coital depression, even disgust, with a vocabulary in-between that is reminiscent more of a war zone than of a romantic roll in the hay.
With Sonnet 128, William Shakespeare employs the well-worn poetic trope of a lover who envies the musical instrument being played by his mistress its proximity to her and the delight of her touch. He either imagines or recalls watching her play a harpsichord or similar keyboard and wishes he could trade places with the keys that seem to be kissing her fingertips. But this not being possible, or – as he actually puts it – the keys enjoying themselves as much as they do, he suggests that she continue to allow the keys to kiss her fingers, while he should be allowed to kiss her lips.
Sonnet 127 is the first of 26 poems in the 1609 collection which together are generally known as the Dark Lady Sonnets. While William Shakespeare himself never uses the expression 'Dark Lady' any more than he uses the term 'Fair Youth' in these sonnets, it is entirely clear from this sonnet onwards that this much shorter section concerns itself with a woman who has dark hair, dark eyes, and a complexion that is most likely tan or olive, as opposed to pale.
The sonnet sets a tone that is ambiguous, somewhat distanced, perhaps slightly ironic, perhaps also quite sincere, but neither of these in an obvious, let alone straightforward way, and it establishes from the outset that the person our poet is now talking about is his 'mistress', and that she does not fit the hitherto or until recently accepted ideal of beauty. In fact, she represents, so the sonnet tells us, the exact opposite of what used to be considered beautiful, but although Shakespeare does not exactly sound overjoyed at her kind of beauty being recognised, he still values this genuine, natural beauty above the cosmetic artifice that apparently has now become the fashion.
In this special episode, Sebastian Michael looks at the first 126 Sonnets in the 1609 collection and examines the principal questions they present:
-
Is there a Fair Youth at all?
-
If so, is this the same young man throughout, or could it be that the first 17 poems, the Procreation Sonnets, are addressed to someone else?
-
And if there is a Fair Youth, who is it?
While there will most likely never be answers that can be offered with cast-iron certainty, a detailed analysis of the textual and external evidence we have does yield significant pointers and offers an idea as to where, on a scale of plausibility, we may locate them.
Sonnet 126 is the last poem in which William Shakespeare addresses his younger lover and so marks the end of the Fair Youth series in the collection first published in 1609.
The sonnet stands out for its tenderness and the gentle tone with which it reminds the young man that even he – beautiful as he is and ever youthful as he may seem – must ultimately be surrendered by nature to all-consuming time, and for the quiet resignation with which it accepts this as the universal and inescapable truth that is all our fate.
Beyond that, the poem is also formally exceptional: consisting as it does of six rhyming couplets, it isn't strictly speaking a sonnet at all, though either Shakespeare himself or somebody else has furnished it with two sets of empty brackets where a sonnet's closing couplet would normally be. And so Sonnet 126 is genuinely unique: there is none other in Shakespeare's canon like it.
Sonnet 125 is the last in this group of three which effectively concludes the series of sonnets that concern themselves with William Shakespeare's love for his young man.
Sonnet 126 also speaks to the Fair Youth directly, but it forms almost a coda, an epilogue so to speak, to the body of poems addressing their relationship.
Here, in Sonnet 125, Shakespeare once more acknowledges that what he has to offer is not status, nobility, riches, or power, but an honest love that comes from the heart: an admiration, respect, and liking for the young nobleman that is not borne out of duty or a desire to manoeuvre himself into a favoured position, but out of a genuine affection, which he senses, and expresses, he receives in return.
Having denied time the power to make his love change in the previous poem, William Shakespeare now with Sonnet 124 turns his attention to politics, statehood, and the fashions of a notoriously fickle society, and further delineates his love for his young man against such other, more trivial, more volatile, much more feeble affections as it may be surrounded by and as it may be finding itself compared to or accused of being.
When Sonnet 123 addressed time itself directly, this sonnet speaks to no-one in particular but makes a general, and even bolder, assertion that his love is unmatched by any other; that it, in itself, is a kingdom, one might say, which does not rise and fall with fortune or the ever-fluid vagaries of opinion and manipulated opportunity but stands strong and singularly tall.
Sonnet 123 is the first in a final group of three sonnets that speak the penultimate words on William Shakespeare's relationship with his young man.
The last word isn't truly spoken at all, it sits silent in a pair of empty brackets where normally the closing couplet of Sonnet 126 would be, but before he addresses his lover there directly, as 'my lovely boy', and warns him of the all-consuming force of time once more, Shakespeare with this sonnet speaks to Time itself and declares his resolute defiance, by and through love.
With his curiously themed Sonnet 122, William Shakespeare tells his younger lover that although he has parted with a notebook he had received as a gift from him, its contents are in fact kept entirely in his memory, where they will remain safely stored and complete until the day he dies. This, he assures him, is a better way of holding on to them than relying on any external object or item, since doing so would only foster forgetfulness in Shakespeare and therefore weaken the young man's presence in his heart.
With Sonnet 121, William Shakespeare claims his right to be who he is and negates the authority of others to pass judgement on him and his actions, specifically those who themselves are not morally or ethically superior to him but who would appear to project their own corrupted values and jaded view of the human being onto those around them.
In doing so, he stakes out a territory of moral autonomy for himself where he alone may determine whether his actions are in fact reprehensible or whether they are simply thought to be so by others, when to him they are the source of rightful delight and pleasure.
With Sonnet 120 William Shakespeare draws a line under the explanations and excuses offered throughout the previous three sonnets for his own infidelities in relation to his young man, and simply reminds himself now of how awful he felt when his lover treated him in a similar way on those occasions when it was him who was sleeping around with other people. The conclusion Shakespeare comes to is that they both in turn have been through hell, and that their respective debt to each other for each other's transgressions now must surely cancel itself out.
With Sonnet 119, William Shakespeare further elaborates on his metaphor, introduced in Sonnet 118, of having taken bitter medicines to prevent himself from ever getting sick of his younger lover, these potions having been affairs, encounters, or even relationships of sorts with other people.
Who these other people were he still doesn't tell us, but he here makes it even clearer that they were fundamentally bad for him, their principal, if not sole, redeeming feature being that their experience has ultimately strengthened him and cemented his love for his young man.
The sonnet is the third of three sonnets which all attempt to explain and to some extent excuse Shakespeare's infidelities of the past, and they all do so in the wake, directly, of Sonnet 116 which famously and categorically posited, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds | Admit impediments."
Sonnet 118 continues William Shakespeare's defence or explanation of his infidelities towards his younger lover with an argument that may well strike us as similarly spurious as the one deployed in Sonnet 117, even though unlike the previous poem, this one possesses an internal logic that allows him to come to a conclusion which does make some sense: so as not to get sick and tired of you, I have been tasting some bitter 'appetisers', as we might call them today, even going as far as purging myself with medicinal concoctions to ward off any such 'illness', but what I found in fact was that these 'treatments' themselves turned out to be harmful to my health and wellbeing.
Sonnet 117 is the first of three distinct but related sonnets that all seek to excuse, or at the very least explain, Shakespeare's own infidelities and inconstancies, first confessed to his lover in Sonnet 109 and, most directly, in Sonnet 110.
Here, our poet lists a whole raft of failings on his part in his conduct towards his young man, and positively invites him to level accusations to their end against him, only to then, with the closing couplet, claim that although such charges be justified in so much as all of this may well have been the case, he has with his actions merely been putting his lover's own fidelity and character to the test.
With his celebrated and oft-recited Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare offers not so much a definition as a characterisation of what true love is: unshakeable and unaffected by external changes or temptations, steady and dependable as a lodestar in the darkest, stormiest hour, and everlasting "even to the edge of doom."
With its religious overtones that echo the Christian marriage vows and invoke absolute certainties in a world that is inherently uncertain, it speaks to generations of lovers in a language that is direct and easy to understand.
It is hardly surprising, then, that together with Sonnet 18, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day, and perhaps the nearly as famous Sonnet 29, When in Disgrace With Fortune and Men's Eyes, Sonnet 116 occupies the top spot of Shakespeare's Sonnets 'Greatest Hits', and it is also one of the most confident statements made by Shakespeare about, as much as in, his craft, poetry.
With Sonnet 115 William Shakespeare turns his attention to the perplexing paradox that a love that is experienced as complete and absolute and therefore perfect, such as his love for his young man, may turn out, over time, to have been but a fledgling infant compared to the even fuller, more profound, more mature love that it has the potential to grow into.
In acknowledging that love can evolve and grow over time it sets the premise that love itself is changeable – here for the better, to be more deeply and more sincerely felt than ever before – and it therefore not only concedes, but claims as a lover's right, the necessity, perhaps, to revise statements made about love in the past, and in doing so to effectively give those pronouncements the lie.
With his curiously cryptic Sonnet 114, William Shakespeare poses a rhetorical question to his younger lover, asking whether his experience of seeing him in everything he looks at is down simply to his eye flattering him, or to his eye having acquired the ancient mystical art of alchemy and actually turning even ugly creatures into beautiful angelic beings just such as the young man himself.
He then also settles the matter emphatically and declares without reservation that it is indeed flattery on the eye's part that has this effect on him, but that any sin the mind may be committing in lapping it all up is mitigated by the fact that the eye too loves what it wants to see – the young man's beauty – and so willingly tastes of this flattering, though therefore potentially poisonous, potion first, before passing it on for the mind to metaphorically imbibe.
With Sonnet 113, William Shakespeare returns once more to the theme of separation, reflecting on how, when he is away from his younger lover, everything he sees takes on his lover's shape and thus reminds him of him.
Although we don't know when exactly the sonnet was written and therefore where precisely in the collection it belongs, it would appear to also, therefore, pick up on the notion, emphatically expressed in the previous sonnet, of his lover being his 'all the world', and it certainly also connects strongly to the sonnet that follows, which will further elaborate on the idea that the younger man with his beauty turns even the ugliest appearance to loveliness in Shakespeare's mind.
With Sonnet 112, William Shakespeare picks up directly from Sonnet 111 in which he asked his younger lover to pity him, and he now goes one step further by telling him that it is his, the young man's, opinion – and his opinion only – that should ever matter to Shakespeare, because not only is the young man, as Sonnets 109 and 110 expressed, his "home of love" and "a god in love" to whom he considers himself "confined" and therefore fully committed, the young man is, so Shakespeare now asserts, his everything, his "all the world," and thus quite simply the only one who matters to him.
Beyond that though, the sonnet also may well be telling us a great deal about the young lover's position towards Shakespeare and therefore about the status and character of their relationship at this advanced point in the proceedings, as we shall see...
With Sonnet 111, William Shakespeare shifts focus from his infidelities in relation to his younger lover, addressed in the previous two sonnets, to a general deficiency in his reputation, which he blames squarely on the fact that his circumstances require him to earn a living in the public sphere.
This, he claims, has led him to acquire the conduct of a person who attracts opprobrium, and while proposing to subject himself to whatever 'medicine' or 'penance' may be required of him, he sees and seeks his remedy first and foremost in the younger man's pity. This, he assures him, will suffice to cure him of any ills he may suffer resulting from any such misdeeds as come with the lifestyle his fortunes have imposed on him.
With his exceptionally candid and forthright Sonnet 110, William Shakespeare at once completes his apotheosis of his young lover, while at the same time confessing to him that yes, he too has had affairs with other people, but also reassuring him that these other lovers were no match for him and that they pale, compared to him, into insignificance, seeing that he is as "a god in love" to whom our poet feels and here declares himself to be inseparably tied.
Sonnet 109 is the first of two truly remarkable sonnets that speak of William Shakespeare's own infidelities towards his young lover during a period of prolonged absence.
Although they do not form a strictly tied pair, together these two poems position our poet and his relationship in an entirely new light, because they for the first time genuinely acknowledge that he, too, like his young lover, has succumbed to temptation elsewhere while they were apart, but they both affirm him to be the only one who ever mattered and the one who truly matters now.
With Sonnet 108, William Shakespeare loops back into sentiments expressed intermittently since Sonnet 76, but particularly again recently in Sonnet 105: I have essentially said it all, there is nothing I can do other than repeat and reiterate and rephrase the praises I have sung and continue to sing for you. What it also picks up from Sonnet 105 is the religious tone this set with a there still fairly oblique reference to the Holy Trinity. This was already amplified, though subtly, in Sonnet 106, and here finds a whole new level of what may potentially be perceived as impudence, if looked on from a devoutly religious perspective.
What it also does – and this may in some respects for our observation be most directly relevant – is to tell his young lover yet again that he is showing signs of age, but that to him, Shakespeare, this doesn't matter.
Of all the poems in the collection first publishedin 1609, Sonnet 107 most clearly and most compellingly seems to refer to external events that shape Shakespeare's world.
Because of this, it takes up a pivotal position in the canon, since it may therein hold clues to both its date of composition and to the person it is addressed to. And while there is little doubt in most people's mind that its references are indeed intentional and allude to some momentous occasion that has passed off signally better than anyone at the time would have predicted, and that in the ensuing calm and peace our poet feels that his love and his poetry have been given a new lease of life, no-one can tell with absolute certainty just what Shakespeare is actually referring to or whom he is talking to, or even whether the two factors are directly or only indirectly linked, or not at all.
There are, however, significant clues, and so much of our discussion of this sonnet will concern itself with what these are and what they mean for our reading of this and the other sonnets in the series.
Sonnet 106 sees Shakespeare return to eulogising his young lover in outwardly straightforward terms. And rather than looking ahead to times to come when his poetry will continue to pay tribute to his love long after both he and his lover have gone, as several of the other sonnets have done, he here casts his eye back to the past through the lens of the poets who have talked about the people of their day, and comes to the conclusion that they were doing just as he is doing now: trying to express the epitome of beauty. But since this had not yet been reached, because the young man of his love had not yet been born, they ended up not so much chronicling their age as predicting an age to come with his appearance in this world; and yet of course now that he is here, it is possible for Shakespeare and anyone who shares the privilege of being in his presence to admire him, but Shakespeare and his contemporaries still find it impossible to do him justice with their words.
Sonnet 105 presents a playful paradox that is no doubt fully intended on William Shakespeare's part.
Addressing, for a change, not his young lover directly, but speaking to the world in general about him and about his love for him, he tells us that we should not see, and in seeing so by implication judge, this love as the worship of a human and therefore by necessity false god, and then proceeds to deify this same object of his love in terms that – in a culture of immensely powerful religious strictures – comes scandalously close to sacrilege by effectively calling him 'the one and only' and investing him with qualities that prompt immediate comparisons to the holy Trinity.
With his celebrated and much-debated Sonnet 104, William Shakespeare appears to set out to do primarily three things: first and foremost, to reassure his young lover that even now, after some appreciable time has passed since they first met, he, the young lover, is still as beautiful to him, our poet, as he was on the very first day; in other words that for him, Shakespeare, the fact that his young lover may be showing signs not so much perhaps of age as of having grown up, doesn't matter.
Secondly, to alert the reader and listener – most particularly the reader and listener of the future – to our mortality and to the passing of time and to the fading nature of youth and beauty, even if the changes inflicted by time are not perceptible in the moment.
And thirdly – as it turns out for some people today still most controversially – to offer a time frame for the relationship with his young man of precisely and specifically three years. All of which, and particularly of course the latter, we will discuss in this episode.
Sonnet 103 is the fourth and last in this group of four sonnets with which William Shakespeare seeks to excuse himself for not writing more poetry to, for, or about his young lover lately.
Like the first two in the group, Sonnets 100 & 101 – which are so closely linked that we may treat them as a pair – this sonnet also references the poet's Muse, but unlike these two it does not address itself to the Muse, but speaks about her, or rather the paucity of the output she facilitates the production of in view of the abundant wealth of qualities possessed by the the object of which she is supposed to help the poet speak, namely, the young man.
With Sonnet 102, William Shakespeare returns to addressing his young lover directly, though still in explanation and indeed defence of the extended period of silence of which Sonnets 100 & 101 spoke, both of which were addressed to his own Muse, admonishing her for her absence.
In contrast to those two poems, Sonnet 102 takes full responsibility for the dearth of praises sung in sonnet form to the young man and sets out its reasoning in an argument that is so elaborate, it doesn't quite fit the form: Shakespeare never actually manages to finish his sentence that covers the entirety of the second and third quatrain, which gives the poem an almost improvised quality that may or may not be fully intended.
Although at first glance Sonnet 101 can stand on its own, it so closely connects to Sonnet 100 that it really in all likelihood should be considered to form with it a pair within this group of four sonnets that they are both part of.
Like Sonnet 100, it addresses itself to Shakespeare's Muse – his poetic inspiration – in a series of rhetorical questions that seek to encourage her to return to him to write further poetry for and about his young lover.
In doing so, it purports to offer a possible explanation for the Muse's absence, but immediately rejects this as unsatisfactory, reminding the Muse of her duty to give the object of his love longevity way beyond his own presence on earth.
Sonnet 100 is the first in a group of four sonnets that speak of a hiatus in Shakespeare's poetry writing to his young lover.
In the collection first published in 1609, this follows Sonnets 97 and 98, which both highlight an absence from the young man that has felt to Shakespeare like winter, with Sonnet 99 acting as something of a bridge between the two themes. Whether, therefore, the silence on Shakespeare's part coincides with this absence, we cannot say with certainty, but it would appear plausible to say the least...
In this special episode, Professor David Crystal OBE, one of the world's leading linguists with over 100 books to his name and a global reputation as a writer and lecturer on Early Modern English, talks to Sebastian Michael about Original Pronunciation (OP) – the way William Shakespeare and his contemporaries would have pronounced English at the time, and how this changes our understanding of Shakespeare's works generally, and specifically the sonnets.
In the collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare published in 1609, Sonnet 99 is unique for two reasons that are possibly related: it is the only sonnet to consist of 15 lines instead of the usual 14, and it is the only sonnet that leans directly on a known source and can therefore be said to be a more or less direct reworking of an existing piece by another poet, rather than presenting a mere variation on a well-worn theme.
The theme itself though is familiar from both classical and Renaissance poetry, but Shakespeare, as we would probably expect by now, manages to furnish his poem with one twist in particular that suggests he may be engaging in more than just a standard rhetorical exercise of imitatio.
When Sonnet 97 spoke of an absence from his lover that felt to Shakespeare "like a winter" even though it actually took place during the summer and/or autumn, Sonnet 98 speaks of either the same or a similar absence that took place during the springtime in April, which, however, on account of not having his lover around, to Shakespeare also seemed like "winter still."
With their many similarities and essentially identical themes, the two sonnets are clearly related, and it is unlikely to be a coincidence that they follow each other in the collection, although we cannot know whether our poet is here talking about a continuous absence from his lover that lasts all the way from late summer into the next spring, or whether he is talking about a renewed period of separation, or whether in fact the two sonnets have somehow got reversed in their order and we are looking at an absence that lasts from spring throughout the summer into the autumn.
This latter scenario seems an unlikely one, as we discussed when looking at Sonnet 97, and so indeed do various other theories which see both these sonnets as merely emotional but not physical periods of separation, or as either referring to periods of separation from two different people, something we also saw and noted in the last episode.
Sonnet 97 ushers in a new phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover, which, following the upheaval, anguish, doubt, and direct criticism of the young man contained in the group that immediately precedes it, comes across as a series of almost serene reflections first, once again, on a period of separation in this sonnet and the next one, and then, in Sonnets 100 to 103, on the challenge of finding the right words to speak of someone as roundly perfect as the young man, with the unusual Sonnet 99 acting as something of a bridge between the two themes that are henceforth being developed.
In this special episode, Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Deputy Director (Education) and Associate Professor in Shakespeare and Theatre at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, talks to Sebastian Michael about the challenges – and joys – of speaking verse in general and Shakespearean verse in particular: how do we do his language justice in a contemporary performance setting and how do we deal with the ways in which the English Renaissance approach to language differs from ours; with a focus also, of course, on the significance this has for reading and reciting the Sonnets.
With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity.
Easing off on the harsh criticism of the young man's behaviour voiced in Sonnet 95, he here brings in a new conciliatory tone which acknowledges that the young man's powers of attracting other people are great and that he could seduce any number of them, but ending on a plea not to do so for the sake of both, and reiterating, for the first time since Sonnet 36, the words 'I love thee', whereby, at first glance perplexingly, it is not only these three words that are repeated here, but the closing couplet in its entirety.
With his astoundingly forthright Sonnet 95, William Shakespeare admonishes his young lover in the most uncompromising terms yet, and he rounds off his salvo with another stern warning that even someone as privileged and exalted as he can go too far. It forms the culmination of a progression in tone and stance that has been underway since Sonnet 87, from almost mourning the loss of his lover, to pleading for the end, if it is to come, to come soon, to reminding the young man of their union and an apparently declared devotion to each other, to effectively claiming his entitlement to the young man's fidelity, to this: a direct condemnation of his character and conduct.
With Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare takes a step back from his discourse in poetry, addressed directly to his young lover, and reflects more broadly and apparently abstractly on a quality of mercy that ought not to be strained.
The sonnet makes two at first glance almost separate observations, devoting the first eight lines – the octave – to an ethical question of how to handle privilege and power, and the following six lines – the sestet – to a metaphor of the tarnished ideal. The two are, of course, not only directly related to each other to form a compelling argument about personal conduct and integrity, but they are also firmly embedded in the group of sonnets which in the Quarto Edition follows the Rival Poet sequence: everything from Sonnet 87 to and including Sonnet 96 hangs together as a coherent string of thoughts, fears, hopes, and concerns over a relationship that is teetering on the brink of collapse, and although Sonnet 94 might in theory also be considered in isolation, it in reality only makes proper sense when read as part of this group, in which it provides something of a linchpin for the astonishing turnaround in tone and stance that is set up by Sonnet 93 and comes into full force in Sonnet 95.
Sonnet 93 is the third of three sonnets that pivot William Shakespeare's stance towards his young lover from one of pure praise and adulation to one that not just questions his conduct and character, but begins to actively admonish him.
It picks up directly from the closing couplet of Sonnet 92 and imagines a situation in which the young man is unfaithful to Shakespeare without Shakespeare knowing about this, and so it compares our poet to a 'deceived husband'. In doing so it reinforces the claim made by Sonnet 92, that the young man is in effect pledged to Shakespeare for life, and it further likens their relationship to a marriage.
And while this can't, of course, be read literally – not least because equal marriage did not exist at the time and Shakespeare was already married with children to Anne in Stratford – it nevertheless gives us a deep insight into how William Shakespeare views himself constellated to his young lover.
Sonnet 92 continues from Sonnet 91 and sets out a compelling – if perhaps strictly speaking somewhat sophistic – argument why the young man may, as the previous sonnet in its closing couplet considered to be a distinct possibility, leave Shakespeare whenever he feels like it, but without in doing so actually making him, Shakespeare, most wretched as a result, as the same sonnet also suggested would be the case.
This sonnet thus appears to contradict the consequence to the poet of a breakup put forward by Sonnet 91, but the ostensible options it offers for his happiness are stark: I can be happy because you love me or because I am dead.
Like Sonnet 91, though, this poem too weaves the thread of thought further and leads into Sonnet 93 as the third part of the argumentation and in doing so it ushers in a rather radical change in tone which will become increasingly pronounced in the two poems that then follow, Sonnets 94 and 95.
With Sonnet 91, William Shakespeare reclaims his place in the young man's favour, and for the first time in a while – in the published sequence since the group that contains Sonnets 71 to 76 – speaks primarily of how the young man's love privileges him, Shakespeare, above all else.
It is for the most part a return to a happier, more confident, more celebratory tone, which, however, tellingly is then tempered with a closing couplet that once again conjures up the spectre of this love being taken away entirely at the young man's whim.
Sonnet 90 is the third of three poems that form a 'group within a group', purporting to accept, even support, any decision the young man may wish to take to leave his poet lover, for whatever reason he deems justified.
Its principal message is straightforward: if you are going to leave me, then do it now, while everything else is going against me anyway; and with this emphasis on what 'now' is like for William Shakespeare, it sheds a fairly powerful light on Shakespeare's position – or at the very least on how he perceives his position – as he writes this sonnet and the ones that accompany it.
Sonnet 89 continues the line of argumentation set up with Sonnet 88 and expounds on the steps William Shakespeare is willing to take to demonstrate to his young man how fully he is prepared to subject himself to his will and to accept a termination of the relationship as perfectly within the young man's rights.
In spelling out the things that Shakespeare will no longer do if he is thus forsaken, and in the choice of its vocabulary, the sonnet lends a fascinating insight into the nature of a relationship that is here shown to be acutely on the brink.
Having bid his lover farewell in Sonnet 87 and effectively conceded that this young man is out of his league, starting with Sonnet 88, and stretching over the next two poems, Shakespeare sets the ground for a spirited fightback that will materialise properly in Sonnets 91 to 96.
In its tone and its stance Sonnet 88 seems submissive, even self-debasing. It echoes sentiments that were expressed in several sonnets before, notably Sonnet 49, which similarly expressed that when the time comes for the young nobleman to distance himself from his poet friend and lover, he, Shakespeare, will take the young man's side and argue his lover's case for leaving him, rather than defending himself and pleading for his lover to stay.
With its complete change in tone, Sonnet 87 ushers in a new and decidedly different phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover.
The sonnet draws on the vocabulary of law, ownership, and finance and in these largely factual terms Shakespeare appears to concede that the young man is simply out of his league: it is the most dejected and most resigned we have heard our poet in relation to the young man, and it marks the beginning of a long end to their extraordinary and extraordinarily complex connection.
In this special episode, Gabriel Egan, Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Centre for Textual Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, talks to Sebastian Michael about computational approaches to the study of Renaissance literature in general and to Shakespeare's works in particular: what are the methodologies employed and what insights can they yield, especially in the context of the Sonnets.
Much has been written and said, speculated and surmised about the Rival Poet in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, with hypotheses ranging from the idea that there was no ‘rival poet’ and that Shakespeare essentially made up this figure, through the notion that there was perhaps a rival or possibly several rivals but that Shakespeare is not writing about a real person but about an amalgam of them all, to the assertion that it is most definitely a man who vies for the attention of Shakespeare’s young lover and quite evidently receives it, possibly, as we saw when looking at Sonnet 86, in more than one sense.
This Special Episode examines in detail the three principal questions that present themselves through the existence of this sequence of sonnets:
1 – Is the figure made up or are we talking about a real person or real people?
2 – If the latter, who is it or who are they?
3 – What is their relationship to the young man, and through him indirectly to William Shakespeare?
Sonnet 86 is the last of the Rival Poet group of sonnets, and it gives a final reason why William Shakespeare has, as he himself put it in Sonnet 85, become tongue-tied and been unable to express himself adequately in his praise of the young lover.
Together with Sonnet 80 it bookends the group-within-a-group consisting of Sonnets 82 to 85 which together make an elaborate argument in Shakespeare's defence and connecting, as it does, with the theme of seafaring and relaunching the metaphor of a sailing vessel, Sonnet 86 draws a direct link not only to the imagery of Sonnet 80, but also its tonality, which is decidedly distinct from that of the sonnets so bracketed. Both, this much more suggestive tone and the thematic reference to Sonnet 80, as well as the on its own somewhat perplexing conclusion Sonnet 85 had come to, will help us greatly in our understanding of this heavily laden and layered poem.
With Sonnet 85, William Shakespeare concludes the group-within-a-group of four sonnets that concern themselves with his own defence against the charge – evidently levied by his young lover – that his poetry is lacking in lavish expressions of praise and that 'imputes', as Shakespeare himself calls it in Sonnet 83, his silence, or, as it should more accurately be described, comparative silence, as a sin.
Here, Shakespeare rounds off his main argument, giving as the reason for this 'silence' simply decorum – good manners – and suggesting that while he can agree with all the praise heaped on the young man by other poets – for which here again we can assume he means principally one other poet – discretion demands that he remain silent and allow for his actions to express his genuine love for him better than words.
With Sonnet 84, William Shakespeare continues and underpins his defence of himself against the charge, referenced explicitly in Sonnet 83, that he has failed to present his young lover with sufficiently effusive praise and instead remained silent about his unparalleled qualities: not only is it the case – as he told the young man there – that you do not need 'painting' in elaborate words since these words, no matter how they try, can never actually do you justice, but in fact the greatest compliment anyone can pay you, this sonnet now postulates, is that you are exactly as you are: what a poet really needs to do is bring out the essence in you, and if he succeeds in this, then and only then can he truly lay a claim to fame as a writer.
And more true to his word than perhaps his argument sets out to be, Shakespeare closes this sonnet with his strongest rebuke of the young man since Sonnet 69, but unlike there, he doesn't follow this with a hasty absolution, but with one more poem to drive home his point...
Sonnet 83 picks up on the notion, introduced in Sonnet 82, of a 'gross painting' in words that other poets make of the young man with the 'strained touches' that rhetoric can lend them, in stark contrast to Shakespeare's own 'plain true words'. But rather than forming a contained pair with Sonnet 82, it spins the argument further, now giving his reasons for not doing what other poets pursue, namely the fanciful portrayal of the young man in the most elaborate and fashionable language available at the time.
Shakespeare then continues to build on this for another two sonnets, to effectively create a group within a group that follows one continuous thread right through to and including Sonnet 85, before he then ends the Rival Poet sequence on an astonishing flourish with Sonnet 86.
With Sonnet 82, William Shakespeare resumes his discussion with the young man of his own status as a poet in the young man's life, attempting a conciliatory, even sympathetic tone which purports to encourage his lover to by all means have a look at other people's writing too, but draws the clearest distinction yet in this group between the authentic nature of his own writing and the soulless artifice of his rivals, whom he here once more speaks of in a generalised plural.
The sonnet can stand on its own, but it sets up an argument that is then picked up by Sonnet 83 – where he again will make it clear that there is really one rival involved – and continues right into Sonnets 84 and 85 which all concern themselves with the young man's increasingly evident expectation to receive poetry that presents him in a particular light and that – as we would say today – ticks certain boxes: a requirement that Shakespeare feels unable to fulfil in the manner that others appear willing to comply with.
Sonnet 81, although it appears right in the middle of the Rival Poet group of sonnets, does not concern itself with any poet other than Shakespeare at all, and so it either marks a detour deliberately taken by Shakespeare from his preoccupation with his rival, or it presents an instance in which a sonnet has in fact slipped from its position and been mislaid here accidentally.
On the surface, it doesn't do anything other sonnets have not done before: it promises and predicts an everlasting memorial to the young man in the form of itself – the poetry that Shakespeare composes for him – while downplaying the role of the poet in creating such a literary monument, and anticipating, wrongly as it turns out, that Shakespeare himself, unlike his young lover, the subject of the poem, will be entirely forgotten. The imagery and vocabulary it employs are so unusual though that they make us wonder whether there isn't more going on here than meets the eye.
With his amazingly brazen Sonnet 80, William Shakespeare metaphorically pushes the boat out in more sense than one and comes close to mocking not only his rival, but also – albeit gently – his young lover whom he insinuates being drawn to this other writer not only by his compelling poetry but by a prowess of an altogether more physical nature too. The poem, for all its theatricality on the one hand and its finely layered wit on the other, still ends on a pensive, even melancholy and for this quite devastating note of self-awareness.
With Sonnet 79, William Shakespeare continues his lament, begun with Sonnet 78, that he no longer enjoys the exclusive privilege of writing poetry to and for his young lover, constructing an – objectively speaking fairly tenuous – argument why the young man should not be overly grateful to this Rival Poet for his efforts.
With a transactional tone taking over the second half of the sonnet, it pushes our perception further towards a possibility that Shakespeare is losing not only the appreciation and affection of his young lover but also his patronage, which, if the case, would possibly have serious implications in terms of his financial and social status.
Sonnet 78 is the first in a group of nine sonnets that concern themselves almost entirely with the apparent arrival on the scene of someone else who is now writing poetry for Shakespeare's young lover, vying for his attention and possibly obtaining his patronage, which is why these poems are collectively known as the Rival Poet Sonnets.
Strictly speaking, Sonnet 81 does not mention this rival and could therefore in theory be excluded from the group, but as it sits where it does and, like the others, talks about Shakespeare's own poetic powers, it is generally accepted as part of it.
Sonnet 78 also happens to mark the beginning of the second half of the collection of 154 sonnets originally published in 1609, and thus ushers in a major new phase in the numbered sequence, although whether or not this is deliberate, we cannot tell. What we do know from this sonnet and its companions is that here begins a whole new crisis for William Shakespeare, which will have a profound and lasting effect on him and his relationship with the young man.
This special episode summarises what we have learnt so far from the first 77 sonnets by William Shakespeare. It recaps the principal pointers that allow us to put together a profile of the young man they were written for or about and outlines the phases of his relationship with our poet, and it also dismantles some of the misconceptions that are sometimes put forward when discussing these poems, especially in relation to potential addressees.
The curiously didactic Sonnet 77 marks the halfway point of the collection of 154 sonnets contained in the 1609 Quarto Edition and it stands out for several reasons.
What most immediately catches the eye is that it seems to be written into or so as to accompany a book of empty pages for its recipient to collect their thoughts and notes in a book of commonplaces, as would have been widely in use at the time. And owing to its tone, it does pose the question whether it is in fact addressed to the same young man as the other sonnets in this large group known as the Fair Youth Sonnets, and if it is, whether it finds itself sequentially in the right place.
The deceptively unsensational Sonnet 76 asks a simple question and provides to this a straightforward enough answer that will hardly come as a surprise: how is it that I write one sonnet after another and they all sound the same? Because "I always write of you."
With this one declaration it settles a debate that – in view of its very existence bafflingly – has more recently reappeared in scholarly circles: are these sonnets, such as we have them in the collection originally published in the Quarto Edition of 1609, addressed to or written about principally one person, or could they not also have been composed in the context of a whole raft of relationships over a much longer period than has generally been assumed?
Sonnet 75 marks a moment of comparative calm in the turbulent relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover.
With its sober assessment of a continuously conflicted world of emotions that oscillate between abundant joy at being allowed to bask in the presence of the young man and utter dejection at missing him when he is absent, the sonnet seems to reconcile its poet with the reality of loving a person who is, in matters of the heart and most likely others too, a law unto himself.
Sonnet 74 continues the argument from Sonnet 73, and now reflects on what will happen when I, the poet, William Shakespeare, am dead. My body will be buried and return to earth, but my spirit will live on in this poetry that I write for you, the young man, which is why the loss you experience at my death will be insignificant: it only entails my passing physical presence, not my essence. In this, the poem proves prophetic not only in relation to the young lover, but also in relation to the world as a whole, since we still very much possess the spirit of William Shakespeare in his writing, and it also flatly contradicts his own pronouncements made in the pair just preceding this one, Sonnets 71 & 72, in which he – somewhat disingenuously we thought then – presented his poetry as something that is supposed to be 'nothing worth'.
Sonnet 73 is the first in a second pair of poems to meditate on the poet's age and mortality and to reflect on the point of his very existence. But while Sonnets 71 & 72 focus on Shakespeare's reputation, which he perceives as poor and which he fears might also tarnish the young man were he to show his love and mourning for Shakespeare after his death, Sonnet 73 concentrates on the wondrous realisation – or possibly hope – that in spite of Shakespeare's age and his approaching what he believes to be his twilight years, the young man not only continues to love him, but appears to appreciate both the need and the opportunity to do so before they must eventually part.
Sonnet 72 picks up on Sonnet 71 and explains why the supposedly 'wise' world would look down on the young man for having loved or for still loving Shakespeare after his death and why he should therefore forget him and allow the poet's name to pass into oblivion, along with his decomposing body in the grave. The sonnet reinforces and intensifies the sense that Shakespeare is or certainly feels unappreciated by the world around him, as he here speaks not only of being 'mocked' by people, but in fact shamed by the work he himself produces.
Sonnet 71 is the first in a pair of poems which purport to urge the young man to forget the author after his death so as to spare him – the young man – any embarrassment or indeed mockery that having loved or still caring for the then deceased poet might cause him. Both sonnets, but Sonnet 71 in particular, strike an ironic tone, which nevertheless seems founded in an unease on Shakespeare's part about his own reputation and standing in the world. Sonnet 71 thus ushers in a short sequence consisting of this couple of sonnets and the following one, Sonnets 73 & 74, which all concern themselves with William Shakespeare's increasingly strong sense of his mortality and the question of what meaning his life may have in the context of his love for the young man.
With Sonnet 70, William Shakespeare once more performs the poetic equivalent of a handbrake turn and swivels what we thought we could understand from Sonnet 69 around 180 degrees to race headlong in the opposite direction. The charge levied against his young lover – that with his conduct he has been allowing himself to become 'common' and thus acquire a reputation way beneath his supposedly exalted status – is here lifted, and any such insinuation summarily dismissed as slander, prompting us primarily to wonder: why? What is causing the accusations against the young man in the first place and what then brings about this virtuoso ventriloquy?
Taken on its own, Sonnet 69 presents a devastating indictment of William Shakespeare's young lover. Its uncompromising juxtaposition of the young man's universally acknowledged beauty against his reputedly flawed character would be enough to put into question whether Shakespeare can still feel at all devoted to him: by itself, the poem is nothing short of shocking. But while it can absolutely stand on its own and nothing within it suggests that the point Shakespeare sets out to make has not been made and the argument he is pursuing not resolved, it is then followed by Sonnet 70 which appears to directly pick up on the charges levied against the young man and equally forcefully defends him against any wrongdoing. The pair thus opens the widest and therefore most dynamic space of tension between two linked sonnets we have yet come across, and it poses further urgent questions about what is happening in the lives of William Shakespeare and his lover, and in their relationship.
Sonnet 68 continues the argument from Sonnet 67 and shifts the focus of Shakespeare's opprobrium from the fashion for heavy make-up to that for wearing wigs, a practice by him equally abhorred.
Unlike Sonnet 67, Sonnet 68 seems to be virtually devoid of any puns or double meanings that would resonate with us, and so although these two sonnets come as a closely linked pair in which the general note of dismay struck previously with Sonnet 66 continues to reverberate all the way through, Sonnet 68 nevertheless presents an entity of its own that in some respects appears to contrast, so as not to say contradict, Sonnet 67: if Sonnet 67 gave us an at least underlying sense of unease about the young man's own conduct, Sonnet 68 does nothing of the sort and simply holds him up as a flawless example of natural beauty.
Sonnet 67 picks up on the deeply dissatisfied mood of Sonnet 66 and develops the theme of a world that has lost its way right through Sonnet 68. On the surface, Sonnets 67 & 68 concern themselves entirely with the then new fashion – much scorned by Shakespeare – for heavy make-up and big wigs and their wearers' futile endeavours to endow themselves with a fake and therefore ghastly pseudo-beauty that stands in such stark contrast to his young lover's natural and therefore genuine beauty. But Sonnet 67 also – and unlike Sonnet 68 – employs several layered phrases and some obvious as well as some more dubious double meanings that may hint at an underlying unease about the young man's conduct or the state of his reputation. This, while at best subtly suggested in Sonnet 67, will become the direct subject of Sonnets 69 & 70 and once again far more forcefully in Sonnets 94, 95, and 96.
Sonnet 66 to all intents and purposes is a rant. In it, William Shakespeare uses his opening line to tell us that he is about to name just some of the things that make him want to throw in the towel and die. He then lists eleven of these ills in the world and reserves the closing couplet to reiterate that he's really over it and would gladly turn his back on it all, except that to do so would mean leaving his love behind, thus turning his love, for which of course read his lover, into the sole redeeming feature of an existence that has altogether too many things wrong with it.
Sonnet 65 brings to a close – at least for the moment – this reflection on the passing of time that started with Sonnet 60 and focused quite heavily – certainly in parts – on William Shakespeare's preoccupation with his own age and mortality. The sonnet effectively provides a summing up of the arguments laid out over the previous four or five poems – strictly speaking, Sonnet 61 thematically does not entirely fit into this group – and in doing so it paves the way for a new wave of strongly felt emotions. The sonnet therefore, although it can stand on its own, should really be viewed in the context of these other time-related sonnets and be seen as the conclusion of a consideration that forms a fairly self-contained sequence in its own right.
With his moving, melancholy Sonnet 64, William Shakespeare continues an ongoing meditation on time, but unlike other sonnets that have gone before or that are soon to come, he here finds no redemption in his own writing or hope in the prospect of being able to lend his lover longevity beyond his presence on the planet through poetry. The sonnet thus offers the perhaps most profoundly troubled perspective yet on the passing of time and with its sincerity paves the way for further heartfelt articulations of what it is to be William Shakespeare in a world where things go awry.
In Sonnet 63, William Shakespeare continues his reflection on his own age and now projects this as a dreaded and near-inescapable reality that will one day be visited upon his young lover; but like several sonnets that have come in the collection before, Sonnet 63 both endeavours and promises to render the young lover immune to death, age, and decay through its own everlasting power.
Shakespeare thus counterpoints his horror of age and his growing despair over the unrelenting swift-footedness of time with a renewed confidence in his own poetry, and although Sonnet 63 can stand on its own, it is thematically so strongly linked to Sonnet 62 that it also serves as reliable evidence to support the contention that Sonnet 62, even though it doesn't make this explicit, is of course addressed to a young man and that this is the same young man as is referred to in Sonnet 63 and, as we have sound reason to believe. whom the majority of the sonnets so far are either addressed to or written about.
With his most unsparing sonnet so far, Sonnet 62, William Shakespeare finds yet another register and a new level of depth to both his insight into self and the honesty with which he is prepared to sonneteer his young lover. That his lover is young and he by his own perception and standards old could scarcely be more drastically emphasised than in this depiction of himself as misguidedly narcissistic. The greater therefore the redeeming twist that comes in the concluding couplet which once more emphasises not just the close connection Shakespeare feels to his young lover but reiterates, as other sonnets have done before, that he and the young man are, as far as William Shakespeare is concerned, one.
With Sonnet 61, William Shakespeare returns to the theme treated in Sonnets 27 & 28 of an enforced separation from his lover that robs him of his sleep, but here brings into the equation the young man's hoped for but absent jealousy, to end on a sense that in fact betrays Shakespeare's own jealousy of the company the young man is keeping while away from him, something that we saw foreshadowed strongly in Sonnet 48.
The sonnet thus echos several of the concerns that have preoccupied our poet from the pair 27 & 28 onwards, right through to Sonnet 51, including the triangular constellation that starts with Sonnet 33 and seems to be resolved, at least for the time-being, with Sonnet 42. This justifiably poses the question whether Sonnet 61 may not indeed have been composed around the same time and be part of the same period of separation, which would support the thesis that at this point the collection falls out of sequence, as is the contention of many scholars.
In this special episode, Professor Sir Stanley Wells and Dr Paul Edmondson who severally and jointly have written and edited many books on Shakespeare, talk to Sebastian Michael about their edition All the Sonnets of Shakespeare and how the order of composition differs from the order in which they were first published in 1609, and also about where Shakespeare's other sonnets which he wrote for his plays fit into the collection.
For his quiet mediation on time in Sonnet 60, William Shakespeare once more borrows more or less directly from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a text we know he knew well and that influenced him greatly in the translation of his contemporary Arthur Golding. Its calm philosophical acceptance of mortality notwithstanding, it nevertheless infuses its reflective tone with an underlying anxiety about the drive towards finality that is inherent in our existence, and only just about manages to end on a concluding couplet that once more expresses Shakespeare's hope – as it is in this instance, rather than, as on previous occasions, unquestionable certainty – that his verse will be able to withstand the destructive force of decay.
Sonnet 59 takes us back into the realm of the proverb and the poetic commonplace and wonders how – if the old saying holds true that there is nothing new under the sun, but everything recurs in never ending cycles – a previous generation would have viewed and in poetry depicted the young man. Similar to Sonnet 53, it for the most part appears to present a pretty straightforward ode to the lover, but then undermines the praise it heaps upon him with a concluding couplet that can be read in two completely contradictory ways, which suggests that the conflict our poet feels for the object of his affections is far from resolved.
Sonnet 58 continues from Sonnet 57 and elaborates on Shakespeare's startling sense of subservience to the young man. It simply picks up from the sentiment that "being your slave" I have to wait on and for you and affirms that in this lowly position I cannot presume to have any powers over your conduct or your whereabouts, and in fact I must not even attempt to gain any kind of control over this situation by thinking about what you are up to when you are away from me.
Sonnets 57 & 58 once again come as a strongly linked pair, and with these sonnets , William Shakespeare positions himself at such a pointedly subservient angle to his lover that we may be forgiven for detecting in them a really rather rare and therefore all the more startling note of sarcasm. The argument that is being pursued is simple enough: I am your slave and therefore you are at liberty to do whatever you want, wherever you choose, with whomsoever you desire, and far be it from me to try to have any say or let alone control over how you spend your time.
As on previous occasions, we shall look at the two poems together in the next episode, while concentrating on the first one of the two for now.
Sonnet 56 is the second sonnet in the series so far in which William Shakespeare addresses not the young man, nor us as the general reader or listener about the young man, but an abstract concept, in this case love. The first instance when Shakespeare did something similar was Sonnet 19, which addressed itself to time. Here as then, this changes our perspective and lends the poem an emotional distance, which here is complemented by a direct reference to a hiatus in the relationship.
With the supremely confident Sonnet 55, William Shakespeare returns to a theme he has handled similarly deftly before: the power of poetry itself to make the young man live forever. In a departure from previous instances, he here appears to borrow directly from Horace and Ovid, who are both Roman poets of the turn into the first millennium of the Common Era, striking a therefore more generic note, but unlike these classical precedents for verses that can outlast the supposedly durable substances of physical structures, he employs his poem once again not to celebrate himself but to praise his young lover.
After the turmoil of Sonnets 33 to 42 and the prolonged period of separation signalled by Sonnets 43 to 51, which in turn was followed by a joyous, sensual and tender reunion with Sonnets 52 and 53, Sonnet 54 assumes a more aloof, marginally moralistic tone which nevertheless manages to connect with, and in fact reference, sonnets that appeared much earlier in the series, specifically Sonnets 5 & 6, in which William Shakespeare encouraged the young man to distil his beauty by giving his essence to a woman and producing an heir, much as roses are distilled as perfume and thus live on long after their death.
The tender and complex Sonnet 53 – just over a third into the series – finds yet another entirely new register and conjures up not only an image of a beautiful person being admired but also a sense of great intimacy that comes delicately paired with that feeling of wonder at something almost alien that may just be too good to be true.
The astonishingly suggestive Sonnet 52 is the closest William Shakespeare has come so far to answering in his own words the question that has agitated readers of these sonnets for centuries: is this a physical, even sexual, relationship he is having with the young man, or could it not simply be one that is very close, maybe romantic, but nevertheless purely platonic. With its choice and precisely placed vocabulary, it relates an either already experienced or imminent reunion and thus also marks the end of the prolonged period of separation that appears to have been imposed on Shakespeare and his young lover since Sonnet 43.
Sonnet 51 picks up from the dull-paced journey of Sonnet 50 and contrasts this with the poet's boundless desire for speed once he is on the way back home to his lover. It also marks the end of the extended period of separation that began with Sonnet 43 and so concludes this sequence of nine sonnets that appear to have been written while Shakespeare is away from London.
Sonnets 50 & 51 once again come as a pair, whereby Sonnet 50 evokes in a measured tone of melancholy the sorrow and sadness Shakespeare senses on a strenuous journey at slowly having to move further and further away from his lover, while Sonnet 51 then contrasts this with a notion of just how eager he will be on his way back to him and how fast he wishes that return leg of the journey could happen.
As on previous occasions, we will look at both these sonnets back-to-back in the next episode, but concentrate on the first one of the pair, Sonnet 50, for now.
The soberly solemn Sonnet 49 opens an unnervingly real register that does away with hyperbolic praise, clever contrivance, or poetic acrobatics, and instead drives through a short structured sequence of dreaded but perfectly plausible scenarios towards a devastating denouement. Seldom until now and rarely hereafter do we hear Shakespeare quite so roundly, so comprehensively, and above all so authentically self-aware and self-effacing.
Sonnet 48 ends the emotional hiatus brought into the sequence by the previous five sonnets and plunges our poet back into a deep anxiety about how much he can trust that his lover will still be there when he returns from his trip.
Sonnet 47 again follows on directly from Sonnet 46, developing the argument further and arriving at a conclusion which is also maybe not altogether surprising, but which validates the premise set out with Sonnet 46 much more than that on its own led us to expect, thus tying Sonnet 46 tightly into this couple as a unit.
Sonnet 46 is the first in a second couple of sonnets that take a more abstract approach to dealing with separation, while employing a fairly established classical trope, in this case a conflict between the eye and the heart over which of these two should 'own' the young lover. Similar to Sonnet 44 in the previous pair, Sonnet 46 can ostensibly stand on its own, but it nevertheless serves as the foundation for its counterpart, Sonnet 47, which follows on from it directly and really needs to be read as an extension of it. We will therefore again look at both sonnets together in the next episode, whilst concentrating here on Sonnet 46.
Sonnet 45 follows on directly from Sonnet 44 as a seamless continuation and therefore needs to be read in tandem with it for it to make sense. With Sonnet 44 having introduced the two classical elements earth and water and explained how it is their heavy materiality that prevents William Shakespeare from being with his young lover, Sonnet 45 now speaks to the nature of the remaining two elements, air and fire, and finds a way to express how it is that even though they be physically insubstantial and infused with liveliness, they still contribute to his prevailing sadness about this period of separation.
Sonnet 44 is the first in two pairs of poems that together sit in a larger group of sonnets which see William Shakespeare spending time away from his young lover and expressing his anguish over this absence. It comes in an unequal coupling with Sonnet 45, whereby 44 can easily stand on its own, but 45 directly follows on from 44 and only makes sense when read in its context. And of course, we will look at them both together in the next episode. This instalment though focuses on 44.
Sonnet 43 leaves behind, for the time-being, the upheaval and upset caused by the young man's betrayal of Shakespeare with his own mistress and picks up the theme – and to a lesser extent mood – of Sonnets 27 & 28 when Shakespeare – away from his young lover and tired with travel – is kept awake by the beautiful young man's vision appearing to him in his dreams.
In this special episode, Stephen Regan, Professor Emeritus at Durham University, who is currently a research associate in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne and the author of The Sonnet (Oxford University Press, 2019), talks to Sebastian Michael about the sonnet as a poetic form: its origins, how it reaches the English language, what Shakespeare does with it that is so extraordinary, and what its outlook is for the 21st century and beyond.
In the second of two sonnets that try to deal with the fallout from the young man's infidelity, William Shakespeare contorts himself into an argument that, really, both his young lover and his mistress did what they did only for the love they both bear him. That this is something of a delusion is a conclusion he himself comes to as easily as we do. Sonnet 42 nevertheless yields a valuable new insight into the suddenly so complex situation by drawing a clear distinction between the levels of priority and the types of connection William Shakespeare feels he has with the other two protagonists of what, without his own intention or let alone approval, has turned into a remarkably post-modern love triangle.
Sonnet 41 is the first of two sonnets in which William Shakespeare tries to make sense of the young man's transgression and to absolve him of any guilt. Like its companion Sonnet 42, it can be read independently and does not form an actual pair, and like Sonnet 42 it doesn't really succeed at what it sets out to do, because by the end of it, it is as clear to us as it is to William Shakespeare that both the young man and Shakespeare's mistress, with whom the young man has had a sexual encounter, have in effect betrayed our poet. What both Sonnet 41 and Sonnet 42 make abundantly clear and leave no doubt about is that this is exactly what has happened and that for William Shakespeare the most important thing now is to reassure himself as well as his young man that, as Sonnet 40 concludes: "we must not be foes,"because clearly he cares too much for him than to let this peccadillo spell the end of their relationship.
With his forcefully forgiving Sonnet 40, William Shakespeare finally connects us right back to Sonnet 35 and sets out on a short sequence which explains with startling frankness what has happened and what should now, and, more to the point, should not now be the consequence of this. That Shakespeare feels desolate about his lover's 'ill deeds' is beyond doubt, as is the fact that this sonnet goes straight to the heart of the matter: love.This poet, who has the greatest vocabulary of any writer in the English language if not ever then certainly up until then uses the word 'love' ten times here – more often than in any other sonnet – to mean either the emotion itself or whoever may be this other person or indeed these other people whom he directs this emotion towards in a relationship that has suddenly become at the very least triangular in the most spectacular fashion.
Sonnet 39 is the last of four sonnets that seem to disrupt the sequence of events until Sonnet 35, and picks up more or less directly with Sonnet 36 by suggesting that it would be best if William Shakespeare were separate from the young man, though for wholly different reasons. The sonnet appears to post-rationalise an imposed absence of, or from, the young man, while also echoing the question posed by Sonnet 38 of how to sing the young man's praises, but then again developing this into a totally different direction. As with Sonnets 36, 37, and 38, it is not entirely clear whether this sonnet has been grouped together with these other poems here simply because it appears to make reference to at least two of them, or whether it really does belong into this smaller group, irrespective of whether that smaller group is in the right place or not.
With his remarkably deadpan Sonnet 38, William Shakespeare changes tone completely and positions his own poetry as the product of the man who has so long now been his Muse. Like Sonnet 37, it does not obviously fit into the sequence, but like Sonnet 37, it still clearly speaks to the same young man and also like Sonnet 37, it references topics that have been expressed earlier in the series: in this case the particular relationship that exists between a poet and the person he is inspired by to write poetry for, something that has been addressed as early as Sonnet 21, where Shakespeare compared himself favourably to the kind of poet who sings his love's praises in unsubstantiated hyperbole.
In the first of three sonnets that appear to disrupt the sequence that concerns itself with the young man's evident infidelity, Sonnet 37 revisits the themes previously encountered of the poet's keenly felt lack of luck, absence of esteem, and sorely missing success, and contrasts this with the young man's abundant riches, both material and metaphorical, describing them as a source of sustenance and survival even while Fortune bestows her gifts elsewhere.
With the curious Sonnet 36 William Shakespeare appears to be either inverting the guilt and shame that the previous three sonnets have laid upon the young man for his evident transgression and projecting it directly on himself, or to be uncovering a new source of scandal that gives him reason to suggest – borderline disingenuously, it might seem – that they dissociate themselves from each other, even though in the same breath it also emphatically confirms the love they hold for each other.
With his tormented, paradoxical, and sensationally revealing Sonnet 35, William Shakespeare absolves the young man of his misdeed and puts what has happened down to nothing in the world being perfect, not even he. It is the third in this set of three sonnets that might be considered a triptych, and with it, Shakespeare appears to resign himself into the triangular complexity his relationship with the young man has acquired, while dropping a nugget of information that to us comes as something of a poetic bombshell.
The devastated and devastatingly powerful Sonnet 34 picks up from where Sonnet 33 wanted to not only leave off but let go, and like a second wave of pain and mourning asks the young man directly why he has allowed the gorgeous sunshine of this relationship to be cast over with appalling weather. And unlike Sonnet 33, it not only tries, but apparently succeeds at forgiving the young man's conduct, paving the way for an even more conciliatory Sonnet 35, principally – and most tellingly – prompted by the young man's apparent response to being so called out.
With Sonnet 33 a new phase begins in the relationship between William Shakespeare and the young man. The storm clouds that gather in this poem are a direct and intentional metaphor for the turbulence the two face, as the young man has clearly gone and done something to upset his loving poet. What exactly this is, the sonnet doesn't tell us, but it is obvious that Shakespeare is hurt and disappointed, whilst trying to rationalise the young man's behaviour in a way that makes some sort of sense to him.
The wryly ironic Sonnet 32 marks a caesura in the canon, as it sits right between a development arc in the relationship that spans the sequence uninterrupted from Sonnet 18 to Sonnet 31, while giving nothing away of the entirely new phase the relationship enters with the storm clouds that gather in Sonnet 33. In tone, in attitude, in self-evaluation, it gains access to a register different to any that has gone before and quite unlike any that is soon to come, and so it stands out, rather, for being really quite unique.
With the astonishingly bold, borderline brazen, Sonnet 31, William Shakespeare strikes a completely new tone and tells both his young lover and us things he has not revealed before. It comes as close as we have seen thus far to declaring a physical component to their relationship, and in doing so opens an entirely new chapter with a whole different dynamic.
Sonnet 30 picks up on the theme of Sonnet 29 and develops the 'sweet love' remembered there into a reminiscence about lost love, missed opportunity and failed aspirations, among which again it is the thought of the young man that has the power, here not so much to simply lift the spirit and therefore the state of mind and heart, but to restore the losses suffered and to end the sorrows they have brought – to, in essence, heal.
One of the most celebrated poems in the canon, Sonnet 29 casts William Shakespeare in a state of deep and lonely unhappiness, from which the memory of his young lover is able to lift him in spectacular fashion. By continuing the theme of weariness and dejection established by the previous two sonnets, it confirms our notion of Shakespeare being on the road, away from the young man, but rather than focusing on a longing desire to be with him, it rejoices in the love experienced before.
Sonnet 28 continues on from Sonnet 27 and develops the thought further, elaborating on the ways day and night appear to conspire to make William Shakespeare's struggling life a misery as he travels, away from his young lover. While it thus does not tell us anything that is in that sense new, it produces a layered internal dialogue that gives us a great sense of the poet's state of mind and disposition of heart.
Sonnet 27 is the first of several sonnets in which Shakespeare laments the fact that he is away from his young lover, thus answering the question posed indirectly by Sonnet 26 as to who is on the move. And while this sonnet can stand on its own, with a fully formed and perfectly concluded argument, it does come as a pair with Sonnet 28, which follows on directly from it and which, by contrast, relies on this sonnet to be properly introduced. The two should therefore be looked at together, and we will do so when we get to Sonnet 28.
The obsequious, so as not to say startlingly submissive, Sonnet 26 radically changes the tone and therefore our perception of the constellation between William Shakespeare and the young man: gone is the confidence of Sonnet 25, gone, even, is the complexity of Sonnet 24 and the uncertainty of Sonnet 23, long gone seems the joy and exuberance of Sonnet 18. With Sonnet 26, William Shakespeare effectively withdraws, resets, and almost apologises for having been presumptuous in his declarations of love.
The at once defiant and celebratory Sonnet 25 is the first in the series to tell us something about William Shakespeare's own situation in life, and it also makes an astonishingly bold claim on the young man, newly asserting not only that the two of them belong together, but that they are inseparable.
With the complex and in its conclusion quietly insightful Sonnet 24, William Shakespeare looks more closely at what is happening between him and the young man whom he has declared his passion for, and he does so in a tone that manages to be both hopeful and realistic – so as not to say resigned – at the same time. It spreads the short shadow of doubt that Sonnet 23 had already tentatively cast over the relationship, but it still does so in the subtlest of ways, leaving plenty of room for the renewed optimism that will follow briefly with Sonnet 25.
SONNETCAST.COM
The simultaneously self-conscious and also cautiously confident Sonnet 23 counsels the young man in the art of love, and in doing so it becomes the first one in the series to signal an uncertainty on William Shakespeare's part about the level to which the young man's love for him matches his own, in both degree and sophistication. And it is also the first sonnet to tell us that while Shakespeare still fully believes in the power of his written words, he has a tendency to become tongue-tied when in the presence of his young lover.
The superficially traditional and almost a little wistful sounding Sonnet 22 is the first one to address the age difference between William Shakespeare and his young lover and it is also the first one to expressly show us that – certainly as far as the poet is concerned and believes to understand – this love is mutual and reciprocated. Which makes this the third sonnet in quick succession to give us invaluable insights into Shakespeare's emotional world.
The distinctive and sincere Sonnet 21 stands out as the first in the series in which William Shakespeare addresses an unspecified general 'audience' to talk about his love – as opposed to the young man directly, or a personified concept, such as Time – and it is also the first one to reference the poetry of somebody else or of other people. It therefore marks an especially significant stage in the development of the relationship and a notable new stance with which Shakespeare positions himself towards his love and the outside world.
The fabulously frank and somewhat saucy Sonnet 20 takes the proverbial bull by the horn and leads it straight to the elephant in the room, addressing head on the fact that the person I, the poet, am here in love with is a young man; and it confirms one of the principal clues we were given earlier as to the young man's identity, which two facts together make this one of the most important sonnets for our understanding of The Fair Youth and Shakespeare's relationship with him so far.
The heartfelt, somewhat self-conscious, but defiant and confident Sonnet 19 underlines the bold assertion I, the poet, William Shakespeare, made in Sonnet 18: that it is my poetry itself that gives life to the young man who receives these sonnets, and thus preserves his youth forever.
One of the most famous sonnets in the canon, Sonnet 18 bursts onto the scene with an energy, confidence, and message all of its own, setting the tone for a whole new kind of relationship and putting the poetry itself centre stage. It is one of the easiest to understand – which may in parts account for its immense popularity – and it is utterly delightful in its unabashed affirmation of life.
The Procreation Sonnets are something of a conundrum: they are entirely clear in their intention, in their message, and in their poetic purpose, they stand at the beginning of the originally published sequence, and yet at first glance they seem to fit nowhere properly. And more than anything else – and more than many if not most of the other sonnets that we have of William Shakespeare’s – they raise the basic question: why? Why does William Shakespeare at some point in his life take time out of what cannot have been anything other than a busy schedule to tell a young man to produce an heir? What concern is the young man of his? And who is the young man?
In this Special Edition of SONNETCAST, Sebastian Michael, author of The Sonneteer, summarises what the Procreation Sonnets tell us so far about William Shakespeare and the recipient of the first 17 Sonnets...
The intricate, self-aware, and in places truly tender Sonnet 17 is the last one to advise the young man to produce some offspring, which makes it the last of the Procreation Sonnets, and it segues smoothly into entirely different and really new territory where William Shakespeare as the poet begins to take centre stage right next to the man he has been writing these sonnets for.
The riveting and really rather irony-infused Sonnet 16 directly follows on from Sonnet 15 and completes the argument set up and semi-resolved there. And while Sonnet 15 can just about stand on its own – with, as we have seen – quite thrilling significance for how it then can be read, Sonnet 16 absolutely needs to be read with Sonnet 15 for it to make sense.
With the somewhat suggestive, slightly cheeky, and categorically confident Sonnet 15, William Shakespeare taps into a whole different register that positions him as the poet in a whole new relationship towards the young man he is writing to, and with astonishing effect.
The at first glance curiously anticlimactic Sonnet 14 seems to take us a step back in any real or supposed trajectory that the sonnets so far have described, but it nevertheless offers an intriguing insight into the constellation between the poet and the young man, and may in fact hide more than meets the eye.
The personal, pleading, and particularly revealing Sonnet 13 marks an especially noteworthy change in tone, and it provides one specific detail that narrows the field of candidates for the young man dramatically in one fell swoop.
In the gorgeous, pensive, and mature Sonnet 12, William Shakespeare finds a whole new register to relate a message that is by now familiar, and he reveals something of the depth and melancholy that will become a feature of future poems in the series.
The refreshingly blunt and remarkably utilitarian Sonnet 11 makes a now well established old argument with a couple of surprising new twists and confirms, or at least supports, a couple of observations about Shakespeare's day and about the young man that we made before.
The spectacular Sonnet 10 boldly goes where no sonnet in the series so far has gone before and radically changes the tone and the dynamic between the poet and the young man.
The multi-layered and marvellously complex Sonnet 9 sets out with an unlikely supposition to make some strongly suggestive statements about the young man and his conduct and introduces a whole new, massive, and massively important, concept to these poems.
The quite contradictory because poetically plausible but seemingly lightweight Sonnet 8 makes yet another, maybe somewhat more laboured, attempt at coming up with a metaphor to move the young man to making a child: music. But it does offer up a significant new revelation...
In the fascinating Sonnet 7 William Shakespeare draws on a classical image to try and convince the young man that he needs to produce a son: the sun travelling in its chariot through the sky, and although the metaphor may have its flaws it still tells us yet more about the poet, his education, and his cultural context.
Sonnet 6 seamlessly follows Sonnet 5 and continues the argument set up there: the poet compares the young man to a flower which, as winter approaches, can only maintain its beauty in a distilled form, and encourages him to distil himself by depositing his essence somewhere so it can not only be preserved but even multiply itself.
Sonnet 5 together with Sonnet 6 forms the first pair in the series. It sets out to compel the young man to metaphorically distil his essence by producing a child...
Sebastian Michael introduces and explains the intriguing fourth Sonnet, in which William Shakespeare makes what sounds like a fairly abstract case for the young man to now produce an heir; but could it be that this in itself tells us something about the young man and about the culture he and Shakespeare live and operate in on the one hand and also about the reasons Shakespeare may have for actually writing these first few sonnets that form the Procreation Sequence?...
Sebastian Michael introduces and explains the particularly exciting third Sonnet, in which William Shakespeare counsels the young man to recognise it is time now to have a son so that when he reaches the age his mother is at today, he will be able to remind himself of his youth by looking at him, just as she does when she sees herself reflected in him. We learn something very specific and exceptionally significant about the young man here...
Sebastian Michael introduces and explains the second of William Shakespeare's Sonnets, in which the poet continues his mission of trying to convince a young man of the need to have children by painting a picture of him in his old age when only a son could carry on his beauty in the world.
Sebastian Michael introduces and explains the first of William Shakespeare's Sonnets, in which the poet tells a young man of unnamed identity that he is wasting his beauty on himself and depriving the world of its due by not having children and asks him to change his ways. This is also the first of the Fair Youth Sonnets and thus the first of the Procreation Sonnets.
The Introduction to SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived.
Sebastian Michael gives a brief account of how he fell in love with Shakespeare's Sonnets and what prompted him to first write a play about them, then record them all on YouTube and create a Video Blog about them and why he is now starting this podcast.
Info, background, transcripts and sonnets at sonnetcast.com